Commentary on the Politics, History and Culture of the Middle East and Central Asia, by Brian Ulrich

Saturday, March 29, 2003

I seem to have started a blog. I'm not sure where this will go...if I have something to say about what I'm doing, it makes more sense to just say it to my friends, and while I enjoy sharing my views on issues and stuff with people I know, I'm less sure about publishing them to the world. I guess I'll just see what develops. If I lose interest, I lose interest.

Anyway, my e-mail to see if anything was going on tonight yielded no fruit, so I just watched Mary Poppins and now find myself here. The Blues lost to the Red Wings today, too, though I was somewhat resigned to that. Wait until the play-offs, if Osgood can find his form.

My main cause for the week is defending al-Jazeera. To be totally blunt, all networks were showing Iraqi prisoners of war until this POW tape came out. And in the Arab world, graphic footage like that is simply accepted, regardless of conflict or nationality. The debate over how to convey the horrors of war is legitimate. Furthermore, the most disturbing thing I've ever seen along those lines is the 1993 Mogadishu tape, which American networks aired aplenty. Al-Jazeera remains the only free network in the Arab world, and naturally will represent the Arab perspective in their editorials. But we shouldn't be attacking them just because they disagree with us. They're the type of people we'll want on our side if we want to truly build a better Middle East.

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About Me

I am an Associate Professor in History at Shippensburg University, where I teach courses in Middle Eastern and world history. My two major research areas are the Middle East from the 7th through 10th centuries and the Persian Gulf from ancient times to the present. Nothing on this site represents an official position of Shippensburg University.